S-Bahn 5: 32: Short Stories

With the flick of a sentence Ben Rosenthal can open up worlds of comic – and not so comic – devastation. S-Bahn 5:32 is a shrewd, dark, funny and sometimes heart-shredding collection. - Sam Lipsyte

I won’t compare Ben Rosenthal’s stories to those of anyone else because I can’t. They are cold and hard, deranged with longing, sickly funny, and far too real for comfort. The writing? Pretty much impossibly good: impeccable, fierce, and barreling at you fast. Rosenthal has vision, skill, and control, and this book is full of stories that seem shaped out of something that’s always been there. I want more of this mind, this view of our days, packaged in perfectly surgical sentences. S-Bahn 5:32 is freakishly good. - Ben Marcus

There is something powerfully alive and beautiful in these stories, something dirty and true and flat out astonishing. When I wasn’t marveling at Rosenthal’s blazing intelligence and guffawing at passages of dark unbridled ribald hilarity, I was struck by the moments of true of tenderness and genuine feeling, thinking here is writer who sees how broken we are and celebrates it. I feel so damn lucky. - Elissa Schappell

Ben Rosenthal’s stories have appeared in Adelaide, Faultline, The Potomac Review, and elsewhere. He is a graduate of Columbia University and The New School for Social Research. His work has received grants from The Alfred P. Sloane Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in New York. This is his first book.